Not even GNOME itself could ignore the GNOME 3 criticism for much longer. "As part of the planning for the DropOrFixFallbackMode feature, we've decided that we will compile a list of supported gnome-shell extensions. This will be a small list, focused on just bringing back some central 'classic' UX elements: classic alt tab, task bar, min/max buttons, main menu. To ensure that these extensions keep working, we will release them as a tarball, just like any other module."

Don't care about Gnome 3 anymore. I'd actually love to use it on my phone but as far as my PC and laptops are concerned I don't want to be bothered with useless eye candy that just slows down my machines that I can't completely disable. Plus, I'm perfectly happy with Xfce. It manages to stay simple and stay out of my way while still getting better with each new release. ie. single click now works with 4.10 and with 4.12 it seems that Thunar is finally getting support for tabs.

I wish the Gnome devs and their new userbase the best. Gnome 2 was great to me for many years, but Gnome 3 is just not for me. I moved on, and I'm not looking back.